Adding, Editing, and Deleting Drupal Users

You, as the administrator of your Drupal site, can add new users, delete users and edit user information; in fact, you have complete control over the registered user accounts on your site.

Adding Drupal users

To add a new registered user to your Drupal site, log in as the site administrator and click People, located in the Dashboard menu bar. Once the People overlay has opened click the Add User link on the left side of the screen. You will see the Add User form.

With the Add User form, administrators can enter a username, e-mail address, password, for anonymous users who want to be registered as authenticated users on the site.

If you set the status to Active, the new user can log in — and if you select the Notify User of New Account check box, an e-mail will be sent to the e-mail address you entered for this new user. The e-mail will inform him that his account has been created and explain where he can log in.

Editing Drupal user information

Before you can edit user information for a particular Drupal user, you need to see a list of your users to select the correct account. You can see a list of your site’s authenticated users by turning to the Dashboard menu bar and clicking People. By default, the People List will open.

Over time, your user list will get longer and longer. The table that lists your users can be sorted using the links at the top. For example, if you click Username, the list will be alphabetized by username, A to Z. If you click it again, it will be ordered from Z to A.

You may also find it useful to sort by the Member for heading if you are looking for a user who has just joined.

The section with the Filter button allows you to view only users who satisfy particular criteria. You can choose to view a list of users based on the permissions or role you have granted them. Or if you need to see just your blocked users, use the Status option.

To edit an individual user account, click the Edit link in the Operations column. You will then be on the Edit tab of the My Account link for that user.

For each registered user, Drupal keeps track of a username, password, e-mail address, a status (active or blocked) and locale. This is information that you, as administrator, can change. Drupal also records information such as the last time a user logged in and any comments a user has made; you can't edit that information.

The Edit tab you as administrator see is basically the same as the Edit page the user sees, with a few exceptions:

The status section isn't available to the user. Only the administrator can control a user's status.

Administrators can choose to use the overlay setting. Normal users, by default, cannot.

The administrator can specify which roles the user has.

If you’re ever asked to reset a user's password, this is the place to do it. But Drupal provides the Request new password link on your home page. This link sends the user an e-mail with a link that provides the user with single-use access to her account so that she can log in and change her password herself.

Canceling Drupal user accounts

To cancel a Drupal user account, follow these steps:

Log in as the site administrator and from the Dashboard menu bar click People.

You will see the list of users.

Select the check box next to the user account(s) you want to cancel.

In the section Update Options, select Cancel the Selected User Accounts from the drop-down list.

Click the Update button.

On the confirmation page, click one of the following options to delete all the users you’ve selected: